#the post hurt my brain without it

[andersunmenschlich]

An Utterly Unsurprising Confession

I am a pedant.

This is partly because I'm autistic, and partly because I was raised and educated by an English teacher. To make matters worse, I was reading the Bible and Shakespeare and so on before I hit double digits. All of this gave me some rather outdated ideas about how English ought to be used.

My entry into the wider world of the internet gave me a terrible grammatical shock. Not only did I have trouble understanding other people, they had trouble understanding me!

I spend a fair amount of time searching Google to learn how to use English the way modern people do.

One night, in the course of this googling, I ran across a Tumblr post.

Now, I don't know who @how-to-write-horror is. They haven't provided any pronouns in their blog header (neither have I; this isn't an uncommon practice), so I'll be referring to them neutrally until I learn their actual pronouns… which I am assuming are most definitely not they/them. "He or she" is so clunky, however, that I refuse to use it.

I could refer to them as it, but that seems rather dehumanizing, don't you think? When I'm fairly certain, based on their opinions about pronouns, that they're either a he or a she?

And yes, I did visit their linked website—it doesn't give their pronouns either.

So "they" it is. Onward!

First they proclaim that "they" is NOT a singular pronoun, and appeal (as proof) to the fact that "they is not singular" sounds absolutely horrific grammatically. They're right, it does.

"You is not singular" sounds equally bad.

This part of their article could easily be rewritten to condemn the singular you, and because that amuses me, I'm going to do it.

The Pronoun "You" is Always Plural.

If "you" were truly singular, it would be interchangeable with the singular pronouns "he/she/it." I can easily prove that to be false. For example:

Peggy is wearing a sweater because she is cold. Let's substitute "she" with "you" to prove that "you" works in this sentence.

Peggy is wearing a sweater because you is cold. "You" and "is" don't work well together. The verb "are" is traditionally used with "you," so let's try something else.

Peggy is wearing a sweater because you are cold. Nope, it still doesn't work. The verbs "is" and "are" don't work together in this sentence. The verb "is" is singular and "are" is plural, so if they're both referring to the same noun, they have to agree with each other.

Peggy are wearing a sweater because you are cold. How many Peggys are there, and how many can wear the same sweater at the same time? Items of clothing are usually designed for single-person use.

Peggy is one person, not a crowd of people. In order for "you" to correctly—in a grammatical sense—refer to a single person named Peggy, the entire English language would have to be restructured.

Strangely, different pronouns work different ways. "You are wearing a sweater because you are cold" works just fine despite the grammatically plural yous and ares and the singular sweater. So does "they are wearing a sweater because they are cold." Baffling!

In their next section, How To Write Horror insists that "they" has not been used as a singular pronoun since the Middle Ages.

To summarize their preliminary arguments:

・In the Middle Ages, people spoke Middle English, not English as we know it today. Even Shakespeare didn't speak modern English, he spoke Early Modern English. The grammar rules of English have changed hugely since the Middle Ages, and so it's patently ridiculous to appeal to tradition in this area: we can't go backwards grammatically (why, I'm not sure).

・Middle English's grammatical rules were inconsistent and depended on location, so you can't appeal to them (a baffling non sequitur: if a rule was the rule at one time, in one place, of course you can point at it and say "see, this was the rule there and then"—and if you like, of course you can go on to say "let's resurrect this one and use it again here and now").

・Most of those old time English speakers were illiterate, which reduced them to using more casual, less grammatically correct English. We modern folk can do better. (Holy superiority complex, Batman. The shortest rebuttal possible: not everyone thinks grammatical excellence is the point of language. Helpful to the point, yes—but not the point itself.)

This, I realized when I finished reading, was a set-up for the astounding move they made at the end of the article.

Next they accidentally explain that while "every person in the room has his own car" is grammatically correct, that does not make "his" a singular pronoun. Since "his" is referring to both singular individuals as well as a group of people, it's plural.

…Or could it be that a sentence which refers to both a plurality (every) and a singularity (person) is correct with either singular or plural pronouns? Hmm.

How To Write Horror's next point involves actual historical examples.

"And whoso fyndeth hym out of swich blame, they wol come up and offre in Goddes name, And I assoille him." —Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, The Pardoners Tale

Translated to modern English, that's: "And whoever finds themselves guilty of such things, they will come up and offer in God's name, and I will absolve them."

Of course, we could also translate it, "And whoever finds himself guilty of such things, he will come up and offer in God's name, and I will absolve him." That's not really Modern English, though—it uses the neutral "he," which pretty much nobody is used to seeing anymore. Even men today might find themselves wondering, "What about the women?"

(Thus far it's pretty much only enbies who notice their own exclusion, but I gather that's changing.)

What is How To Write Horror's point here? Well, they argue that the original "they" was probably a mistake… and even if it wasn't, since "whoso" is both singular and plural, and the singular "him" is actually a hypothetical singular and therefore plural, the "they" in this sentence refers to a plurality rather than a singularity and is itself plural, Q.E.D.

This doesn't actually change the modern usage of the singular they.

None of their arguments do, if you were waiting for that. .

"Somebody left their umbrella in the office. Would they please collect it?"

"The patient should be told at the outset how much they will be required to pay."

"But a journalist should not be forced to reveal their sources."

"This is my friend, Jay. I met them at work."

All of these examples from Wikipedia can be rewritten to avoid the singular they. But why should they be? They're not confusing, and not inaccurate by the grammatical rules of modern English in 2024.

(I personally might rewrite 3. I think "but no journalist should be forced to reveal their sources" more accurately expresses the feeling of the sentence—and it's still a perfectly good example of the singular they. You can swap their for his, her, or its without grammatical issue. This is a slightly different subject to the one at hand, though.)

"This is my friend, Jay. I met Jay at work."

Why on earth would you go out of your way to refer to a person like that when there's a perfectly serviceable gender-neutral pronoun available for them and, presumably, they've told you that they like it when you use it for them?

Are you an asshole? That's the only reason to refuse to call a person what they want to be called that I can think of.

Catch me refusing to call Ted "Ted" because his legal name is Theodore and what he likes to be called is technically incorrect. Pedantry forbid I should taint my speech just to make another person feel respected.

My speech isn't even tainted! I'm playing by discarded rules! .

How To Write Horror lives up to their name in the next section by revealing that they see nonbinary people as egotists (or possibly egoists) who insist on the pronouns that feel right for them because they think they're specialer than everyone else on the planet.

Special People Use Special Words to Illustrate Their Special-ness.

See? I wasn't exaggerating. They list people (and characters) who use/d plural pronouns: Yahweh Elohim, Queen Victoria, anyone of high social status back in the days of Shakespeare.

They mention that "you" used to be solely plural, somehow miss the fact that grammatically it still is, and carry on to argue that people who use they/them pronouns should also employ the Royal We in order to remain grammatically consistent. Given that some people undoubtedly call How To Write Horror "you," perhaps How To should also use the royal we. If you, an individual, are referred to with a plural pronoun, then, grammatically….

Or perhaps they'll start insisting nobody point at them and say "you" anymore. For the sake of the English language.

Next they take a 1759 quote from the Earl of Chesterfield:

"You will say perhaps, one cannot change one's nature; and that if a person is born of a very sensible, gloomy temper, and apt to see things in the worst light, they cannot help it, nor new-make themselves."

They argue that the "a person" in this sentence is a hypothetical person, and therefore actually more than one person.

Let me rewrite the quote and their argument about it.

"He will say perhaps, one cannot change one's nature; and that if a person is born of a very sensible, gloomy temper, and apt to see things in the worst light, you cannot help it, nor new-make yourself."

"You" and "yourself" are used hypothetically in this sentence, making them plural.

The Earl of Chesterfield moved from using directly singular words, "he will" and "one cannot change," to the hypothetical phrase "if a person." "A person" is singular, but it's a hypothetical singular because the determining article "a" is non-specific; "a person" means one person among many and is, therefore, plural.

Using the conditional word "if" supports hypothetical use. Chesterfield is including other people with the same temperament as his son under those who are unable to "new-make yourself." If "you" were a truly singular personal pronoun in this example, Chesterfield could've said something like this about his son:

My son, Philip, you is such a gloomy gus.

The fact that certain pronouns are grammatically plural and so cannot be used with singular grammar even when being used singularly seems to have escaped How To Write Horror.

In fact they declared that "you" was a directly singular word, despite its inescapably plural grammar!

They also decided to use a sentence that sounds weird with a pronoun in it at all. "My son, Philip, he is such a gloomy gus"? Who says that? "My son, Philip, is such a gloomy gus." There you go. Much better. If you really want the pronoun in there, all right—let's shove it in. But keep it grammatical!

Talking about Philip: ・"Oh, Philip, my kid. Yeah, they're such a gloomy gus."

Talking to Philip: ・ "Oh, Philip, my child. You are such a gloomy gus."

Less unnatural and strained uses of the singular they and the singular you, How To Write Horror can look for throughout this post (assuming they take the time to read it). I'm sure they'll find a few!

Next, How To Write Horror hedges their bets with a claim that this letter was written informally, much as emails are written today, and so can't possibly be used to show how people were using the word "they" in the past anyway, even if Chesterfield was using it singularly. Bit of a contradiction, that. Of course it shows how people were using the word "they" in the past. It's a record of past use of the word "they."

I think their assumption is that only the strict grammatical rules of the time apply, where "strict grammatical rules" means "the grammatical rules I personally think count as valid."

Otherwise why would HTWH go out of their way to disparage the grammatical rules of Middle English? .

They bring up Thackeray's "A person can't help their birth" to claim once again that "a person" is plural (and so, logically, if you write "a person can't help his birth" that makes "his" a plural pronoun too), and move on to try and explain away Shakespeare:

"There's not a man I meet but doth salute me As if I were their well-acquainted friend." —William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors (1594)

A modern English speaker would translate this as, "Everyone I meet greets me like I'm their best friend."

A couple decades ago I might have translated it "there's not a man (meaning a human) I meet who doesn't salute me as if I were his (gender-neutral) well-acquainted friend." What do you suppose How To Write Horror thinks this does to the pronoun "his"?

To substitute:

"There's not a man…" is a hypothetical reference, which is further supported by the hypothetical phrase "if I were." Shakespeare is not saying one man saluted; he's saying that many men saluted individually. One man among many men in plural, making "his" plural.

If Shakespeare were calling out one man then why didn't he say "that man saluted me"? Why would he be vague when talking about a specific person?

Well, they must be right. That's all so very convincing. This must prove that "he" and "him" and "his" are all plural.

Certainly it can't be the case that singular pronouns work just as well, grammatically, in a sentence like this. No. That would be ridiculous, and make this attempt at proving "their" can't be singular a complete waste of time. Surely How To Write Horror wouldn't do that. So "he" must be a plural pronoun!

How odd that it's written with singular grammar.

But there—"you" is written with plural grammar, and yet How To Write Horror insists that this doesn't make it plural. I guess that just happens sometimes.

Pardon the heavy sarcasm: I hope no one's being crushed under it!

They repeat the same argument in a different form (the "he" in each one in his craft is wise is plural, apparently), stumble upon an actual plural they (a group of sacrificial animals in the KJV)… and then, finally, they wrap the whole thing up with the most thorough rejection of possible future evidence that I've seen outside Christian apologia:

If anyone finds a historical example of the singular they which How To Write Horror can't explain away, it's because that historical writer was breaking the rules of English.

Fin.

[bisexualcherdegre]

D:BH Rarepairsweek 7 | @dbhrarepairs

Day 5: Markus/RK900 RK900 has a lethal encounter with Markus. The next time he visits the Zen Garden, he finds someone he didn't expect.

[crimeronan]

self-indulgent because i'm having a Riotously terrible evening pain-wise but i'm very fond of hunter being a waify little chronic illness/pain boy post-canon and like. for a while, just. no one.... notices.....?

not even because he's actively Hiding it, like. he would 100% tell people he's in pain if they asked. it just. doesn't occur to him to share. he'll sometimes quietly withdraw and lay down in the dark to conserve his energy and the others very reasonably assume it's a grief thing.

so they'll sometimes like. knock gently on the door and ask if he wants company, to which sometimes the answer is yes and sometimes it's no. "no" when hunter is in a significant enough amount of pain that he really can't move much & "yes" when he wants to curl up with bad TV shows as a distraction

it could be anyone in the squad who figures out what's going on but i'm gonna go with my bias and say it's luz, on a day when she's having some bad depression/grief/survivor's guilt feelings herself. bc she's still coming to terms with her own death and the loss of her glyph magic and sometimes she is. Sad

hunter having one of those Catastrophic pain days where he's planning to be an unmoving lump under 7 blankets for the entire day. n luz coming in and softly asking if she can lay down with him. which is different from asking if he wants company. hunter would say no to company bc he can't really Perform Friendship right now but he doesn't mind luz being here.

luz climbing under the 7 blankets too. n snuggling up to hunter and wrapping an arm around him. and hunter just like. goes Stiff. like beyond "hm this is mild discomfort" stiffness, his muscles completely lock up and go rigid like he's just been Shot. he doesn't make any sound or protest or flinch away or anything, he just kind of. stops breathing

luz pulls away immediately bc she recognizes that Something Is Very Wrong, i'm guessing she assumes it's a panic response bc hunter has plenty of reason to have issues with physical touch. but then she sees the expression on his face and it clicks and she's like.

hunter. dude. hey. hey. hunter.

do your scars HURT??????

[youngestdaughtersyndrome]

I think my true white whale is the existence of reality in the sense that due to the bias of the human brain nobody is really interpreting the world the way it actually is and The World could very well be some incomprehensible eldritchian nightmare place that the human brain turns semi-pleasant to placate the soul and stop our minds from shattering. Like maybe im just a classic nutcase but our only concept and touchstone for "reality" is the consensus of the population and the consensus of the population might be totally wrong but we'd never know because we cannot perceive the world outside of our own eyes. We have no idea who is seeing the world the most accurately like we really have no idea what life truly is/feels like and we assign everything labels and structure based on something that could very well be an illusion. And i dont know if i would think this way or think about this at all if i didnt have psychosis but knowing that my reality doesn't exist to other people has kind of opened my mind in regards to the perceived realness of the world but most of all it has opened my mind to the idea that fully and truly all we have is each other... all realities that are experienced exist in some form but we have to hold onto each other to stop from getting swept out into that big dark endless ocean of maybes and what ifs.... humans keep humans sane as much as we drive each other crazy and that's literally the point of it all. Hell is other people (world seen through a solitary perspective, isolation, "at" mentality vs "with") but heaven is each other (world seen through group perspective, togetherness, "with" mentality). Does that make sense. Is this thing on

[billford-dump]

Ford but he gets jealous.

Bill has been back for a while now. Long enough that they know he’s powerless, stuck in a body he’s still getting used to, mostly harmless as long as you aren’t careless. He jokes and rips people off with Stan, explains (rants about) random tidbits to Dipper, does the occasional craft with Mabel and sometimes lets her do makeovers on him (at least after he showed her how to do makeup properly).

But he gives Ford plenty of space and it makes him absolutely burn with envy sometimes. Is he not even worthy of Bill's attention now? If not as a friend or partner, then at least as an enemy? An acquaintance? If that's it, what makes all these other people worth his time?

Meanwhile Bill is trying not to bother Ford, he's avoiding him to be polite because he thinks Ford wouldn't want him anywhere near him. (Because he fears that if he pushes too hard Ford will kill him for real this time.)

Ford is just quietly annoyed for ages, trying not to snap or lash out, but when he does its damn near catastrophic. Everything comes pouring out at once about how he hates how easily Bill moved on and left him behind, how he misses him but he's never been good enough, has he? No, Bill doesn't care about some feeble little human, he just plays with it and tosses it aside when it breaks!

Bill of course had no idea, but he still gets angry about being yelled at. Ford always looks annoyed when he’s around, he’s been giving Ford space and trying not to bother him! He thought Ford wanted to be left alone!

It's their biggest fight since Bill came back. Even early on it wasn’t this bad, with Bill still in a state of mild shock at his new body and Ford too busy trying to figure out how Bill had come back to be truly angry. It’s a solid 10 minutes of screaming at each other about how this is your fault, you're the one who didn't communicate! The only reason they stop is because Stan broke it up when it looked like Ford was gonna take a swing at Bill and he put them both in time out. Bill agreed because he doesn't actually have the energy for a serious fight, and Ford agreed because he will not be seen as the unreasonable one compared to Bill fucking Cipher.

Stan eventually manages to herd them into apologizing to each other once they calm down.

Ford (reluctantly) admits that yes, he was being unreasonable and overreacted, he's been extra stressed because of Bill's return and Bill being around his family (because he still half-expects to find the demon standing over their corpses one day) and he lashed out over something that could have been easily avoided if he just talked to him instead of bottling everything up.

Bill agrees that he was being unreasonable too, he should have told Ford that he was going to give him space until he felt comfortable being around Bill, if he ever felt comfortable being around Bill again, rather than assuming he knew.

---

The next day Bill sits next to him while he works, rambles on about whatever comes to mind, which makes it hard to concentrate and is incredibly annoying-

But he finds he doesn’t mind it too much.

[fushiglow]

i know everyone else has moved on but i just wanna say that 236 was huge for those of us who headcanon autistic gojo

[travelerarisu]

li tianchen and chen xiaoshi's theories - link click season 2

I don't know if anyone else has done this already but if someone else has, please let me know-

anyway, shoutout to my friend (Annie if you're reading this, I hope you know you're the best~) who debated with me over this for three hours...

be warned, there will be spoilers to both season 1 and season 2 of link click !!

more under the cut (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

-

for the sake of simplicity:

CXS = Chen Xiaoshi

LG = Lu Guang

LTC = Li Tianchen

LTX = Li Tianxi

XSS = Xu Shanshan

To start, let's establish that CXS's power is to dive into the past through a photo from the present. If he claps hands with LG before diving into the past, he can establish a connection with LG during that dive. However, lthough it's often translated as diving into the past, I see it more as him reliving what happens after the moment the photo is taken through the perspective of the person taking the photo. All throughout Season 1, we follow his dives into photos and there is one overarching theme; he shouldn't change the past lest he risk affecting the present and future.

He shouldn't but what if he can't?

Off of the top of my head, there are only two instances where CXS actually changed the future (yes, I am aware that when he possesses LG's body in Season 2 and then breaks the window, he changes the situation slightly by using the kettle which LG didn't originally use but in that instance, the outcome at the end was still very similar, if not the same, to what originally happened)

For CXS to change the future, he has to dive into a photo to affect the present to change the future. He was able to do this during the Dou Dou case and with XSS's implied death.

For Dou Dou's case, I think it's important to remember that the circumstances were really peculiar and that no one (other than Qiao Ling who gets distracted by CXS on his first dive into the past when he dived into the photo as himself) notices Dou Dou get abducted other than the abductor herself. When diving into the photo as Dou dou, CXS makes a dramatic change in the past by punching the abductor in the face, pretending he's her ancestor, and making her believe she's cursed. Then, in the present, LG (with the information that CXS uncovers on said abductor) informs the police who then arrest her. She then "treats Dou dou as if he were her own son" due to the belief CXS planted in her which "creates" a new timeline that she follows through with for the next two years. The fact that she confesses when arrested by the police and admits to everything easily in this new timeline is evidence of this. The key point here is that she followed through.

Now, so far we've established CXS's power is closer to a reliving of the past than a true time travel to the past, that he can't change the past unless he makes a dramatic difference which would affect the present by creating a new timeline, and then following through with this newly made timeline is what actually changes the future.

Next, let's establish LTC's and LTX's powers. LTC's power is to possess and control someone through physical contact while LTX's is the ability to see and feel what a person in the present is seeing and feeling through a photo. What I want to bring attention to is how LTC is in the present, possessing someone in the present, to affect the future. He is in the present directly changing the future.

This is what sets him apart from CXS who is in the past trying to affect the present to change the future.

If we turn the past and present into "node" then we can think of LTC as being in one node (the present) affecting infinite futures and other nodes while CXS is jumping into another "node" (the past) to try and change the "node" of the present which would then change the "node" of the future. (like a domino effect)

Therefore, as LTC is always in the "now" affecting the future when he is using his power to possess, he determines the "now" and because he is in the present he is the only one who can make big changes to the future.

In other words, to CXS, death is an unchangeable node for him but not necessarily for LTC which leads me back to XSS's case, the only other case where CXS was able to change the future.

In XSS's case, XSS (in the original timeline) is heavily implied to have died at the hands of Liu Min or at least had been mortally wounded and would have died very soon. Liu Min was the one that killed her and who was the one that was possessing Liu Min's body during said murder? LI FREAKING TIANCHEN.

When CXS dives back into time through a photo of XSS, he intrigues LTC who is possessing Liu Min by asking him to visit the Time Photo Studio effectively stopping him from killing XSS. The key point here is that LTC was the one who made this decision which changed the present and future completely which supports my theory that LTC is the only one who can make the big changes to the future as he is in the "now" and can directly do so (unlike CXS).

This would also explain why CXS is forcibly "ejected" when LTC tries to possess him. CXS possession of people only happens from past to present while LTC is only able to possess people in the present and onwards. Thus when LTC tries to possess a person already possessed by CXS, like LTX in the flashback, in the present time, he automatically “ejects” and overrides CXS's possession.

And so, because of how LTC's power works (he is always in the now and is affecting the future directly) he determines and decides the “now” so to say. This is why CXS can’t easily change the past without LTC "confirming it" and deciding to "follow through" with the change. 

And with all of this, assuming LG also realizes this, then it would be natural to assume that he has come to the idea that with LTC, he can finally make that future he so desires where CXS is alive. All he needs is for LTC to "confirm" and "follow through" with the changes he will makes in the past when he dives to effectively reverse CXS's imminent death.

Too bad they're on opposite sides...

-

To everyone who read this far, thank you for your time !! This is my first ever tumblr post and I'm still not too sure how to use tumblr...

So much respect to all the other Link Click theorists on tumblr who make these long posts that I've only just realized take forever... thank you all so much for all your wonderful theories 🙇‍♀️

Let me know what you think, and until next time ٩(⊙‿⊙)۶

~Ari ❀

[thevalkyriewarrior]

I hate the feeling of not being broken enough.

Of feeling like there's always going to be someone else who needs attention and comfort more than you

That you're less important because you're holding yourself together better

[salemruinseverything]

when your card declines at therapy and they bring out the person you used to look up to because you felt like they were going through the same thing as you before you found out they were the exact type of power-hungry abusive dipshit you're terrified of becoming

[sysig]

So full of love to give (Patreon)

Bonus:

Sauna-ley, he’s gotta plastic-wrap his arm

[thedevotionaltour]

i don't know how to describe just how much heartache this panel sequence causes in my brain like i feel sick and in pain you'd think it was like my real life friend going through this instead of some lines on a page. like my heart hurts. badly.

[melviships]

(sees all the shit everyone is going through) (sees I have to support the batshit decisions they make in order for them to be romanced / favored) mm, ah, okay, sure

[hylianengineer]

Why oh why is the universe so mean to me

[mashmouths]

is it an adhd thing to need to reinvent the concept of a study space so you have any chance of actually studying or just a facet of being alive that no one warned me about

[fellhalcyon]

i just need somebody to die for.

[dandyshucks]

starting to think maybe i should turn rbs off on that post actually bc im having heart palpitations now fdsjgjkl why is this happening to meeee